December 27, 2011

States push further into the EB-5 act: New York offers grant to get Capital area regional center off the ground, Maine backs application in progress

Atlantic Yards Report

Given that states and cities benefit when local developers and businesses get cheap foreign capital, it's no surprise that states have begun to assist efforts to establish regional centers that recruit green card-seeking immigrant investors.

The state will pay $125,000 [see p. 59 of this awards list] to help establish a federal visa program in the Albany, New York, area that would match wealthy foreign investors with local developers.

The funding is among the $62.7 million awarded to the Capital Region today through a competition set up by Gov. Andrew Cuomo to promote economic development.

The money was requested by the Center for Economic Growth to create the EB-5 visa program.

There are significant start-up costs to a regional center, including a lengthy application and an economic analysis--apparently funded by the grant--that must be submitted to the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. Then there are marketing costs. The total can reach $600,000.

The Center for Economic Growth (CEG), a not-for-profit membership organization in the Capital Region, would not operate the regional center, according to the article; rather, the overseer would be another not-for-profit or, as is most common, a private business.

CEG President F. Michael Tucker told the 11/8/11 Business Review, “It basically provides a tranche of financing that would complement traditional bank debt and developer equity because right now in this credit market developers need more equity than they have in the past,” Tucker said.